10‑Minute Sneaky Steps Walking Workout - 1000 Steps Fast | Ep 49

Want to more throughout the day without even noticing? 

Try this 10-minute indoor or outdoor walking workout and get about 1,000 steps in fast.

You can do this walk marching in your living room, on a treadmill or walking pad, or outside in fresh air.

I’ll chat about “pocket steps”… moving while you wait (and wait). 

How being “inefficient on purpose” is awesome for burning more calories. 

And a quick look at NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis)… how fidgeting and everyday movement might do more for you over time than occasional butt-kicking workouts.

Somewhere in there, I’ll also talk about treadmills being invented as torture devices, the agony of waiting for the shower to warm up, and Aldi shopping carts.

Strap on your sneakers and let’s get those steps in together. 

PS. If you’re walking outside, I put a bell at the halfway point in case you want to turn around.

Transcript

0:00

So today we're going to unfuse ourselves from the chair or the sofa. Going to start at a warmup pace. If you're indoors, you can use almost any kind of equipment, even walking around in place or marching. And if you're doing this outdoors, there'll be a bell at the halfway point in case you want to turn around. Deep breath in through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Just find that pace. Today, I'm going to share with you some sneaky, sneaky tips. Some of them you've heard, some of them you haven't, but I'm going to try to make them more creative for you. But first I gotta share with you something that I just learned. I did not know this, and you may already know this, but the treadmill was invented in 1818, okay? No one cares about that, right? But it was literally invented as a punishment device for in the prisons. They called it the tread wheel and they made prisoners walk on it for hours and hours and hours to grind grain. And it was designed to be miserable. So if just walking nowhere on a treadmill, makes you feel that same way, then you know why. There's a reason behind it and that's our useless piece of information for today. Hold onto that pace. Shoulders are down and relaxed. Hands are loose. Going to go a little bit faster, it's a little bit more purposeful. We're still warming it up. Your feet are going to find a slightly more steady rhythm now. Still easy, just not a shuffle. Today I'm going to talk first about pockets and not the kind of pockets that we love to have in our dresses and skirts of leggings, but the pockets of waiting. There's so much waiting every day. We have to wait for this and wait for that and wait for this. I'm going to give you some tips to turn those waiting times into movement.'cause sometimes we don't think about it and there'll be bonus steps. So when our coffee is brewing or our tea, doesn't matter what you're doing. The only thing is if you are doing pour over, this would be really hard. So while you're waiting for it to brew, you can march in place. You can walk around the kitchen in a loop. Just keep yourself moving. And of course the shower warmup. I don't know about your shower, but my shower takes like 10,000 hours to warm up. You can march in place while you're waiting in there. You can do some pushups against the sink or the counter. You can even do pushups against the edge of the tub. If you're really, you know, industrious and you have a tub in there, just walk around your bathroom. Just don't forget the shower's on 'cause I've done that. And something I call the dental walk, which sounds weird, but I almost never brush my teeth standing still. I pace the hallway, sway side to side, do the little dance, get down tonight, get down tonight. So if you brush your teeth for two minutes, twice a day or three times a day, those are some sneaky extra steps. And this one, almost every dog owner. Can relate to because sometimes your dog takes forever and ever to find that perfect spot. Circle, circle, circle. So while you're waiting for them to circle, circle, you can do your own little circle or even some gentle marching. Just think about little things to keep that body moving. Check your shoulders and jaw. Make sure shoulders are down away from your ears. Deep breath in through your nose. And exhale through your mouth. Do a little dance here if you want. If you're waiting for your kids in line or at practice, do a tiny little loop around the car or just get up and do a little loop. And not when they're getting ready though to hit a home run. But you can walk back and forth and keep moving. Okay, now we're going to pick up some pace, nice and strong and steady. Find that rhythm. Feel the beat. Like we're walking through a parking lot together. We're brisk, but we can't hold big, long conversations. Dialing it up. So I'm going to tell you something that you never thought you'd hear that maybe you should be less efficient. You're like, what? Yes, because efficiency often means that we get less steps in our day. So what do I mean by that? Well, the one trip myth, which I'm sure you've done a thousand times like me, you unload everything from the car and you put as many things in your arms as you can. You try to carry them in. In one trip. Sure it's heavy and you get a little more weight when you walk in, but it's better just to take one bag in at a time or two bags in at a time. Sneaky steps. And you've heard this one a thousand times to park further away, like when you're in a shopping center. But it's not just about getting your steps in. Parking further away helps you get in and out of the parking lot faster. Hold on to that pace. Stay with me now. Nice and strong. Roll those shoulders backwards. Seven, and roll it forward. I feel like I'm in a fitness class. Release it down now. And then of course you can upgrade your cart return. Pretend like you're at Aldi, and instead of just bringing it to the closest corral, take it all the way back to the store where you found it, and then walk all the way back to your car. See, that's a lot of extra sneaky steps right there. Now, one of my favorites is instead of filling up a giant Stanley, if you're going to be at home or at a home office, get a smaller cup and then get up and refill it more often. It just forces you to get up and down from your desk more. Let those arms swing. Staying with that strong pace, nice and steady. Feel for tense spots in your body. Let's give these last couple of minutes our best pace of the walk. Strong. The next tip is the walk and talk rule. If I'm on the phone or a Zoom call, don't have to be on camera, I try to stand up where I walk around the room, down the hall. I think sitting is for emails, calls are for walking. Walking and talking. And then if you have to go the restroom or break room or use the printer, take a slightly longer route when you can. Use the upstairs bathroom. Go around the sofa, loop the hallway, 30 to 60 seconds, but it all adds up. Stay with that pace, nice and strong. Hold onto it. If you're stuck on a problem, just staring and staring at our screen really doesn't help but give yourself three or five minutes of pacing or just outdoors for a quick walk, and the movement wakes up your brain so that way you can focus a little bit better. Even if you walk circles around your house. Just squeeze those in. Okay, my last tip is my favorite tip. Trash farther away from my desk tip. So most of us just have our trash can under our desk. But if you move it a little bit further away, you're going to force yourself to get up every time you have to throw something away. Doesn't sound like much, but all these little things add up every day. Slow your pace. Ease back. Big inhale and exhale. Let your arms, hang a little looser. Make sure your feet aren't gripping your shoes. This is a quick little walk today, and we didn't just get our walk in, but you also got a little menu of sneaky step ideas that you can grab and use on busy days. Try to add one or two a week, or we can make overachiever and add them all. But then if you're like me, you're going to forget or burn out. And your mission, if you choose to accept, is to try one of these little tips. Just pick one and try it out for this week. You don't have to overhaul your whole life. Just test one little experiment today and see how that goes, and then add another one next week and another one the week after. Slow it down more again. Keep your breathing nice and slow and deep. Before we finish, just a quick, nerdy question for you. Which do you think burns more energy over the course of a week?, A formal workouts, and there's no quiz by the way, or B, all the little everyday moments, walking to the car, cleaning, pacing while you're on the phone, taking the stairs, all of that. For a lot of people it's actually B. All those little everyday movements, and there's even a fancy name for it. It's called NEAT, which stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenics. And this is just a sciencey way of saying all the sneaky stuff you're doing, it really counts and adds up. Okay, last dad joke. Isn't that neat? Another deep breath in through your nose now and exhale through your mouth And if this made staying active, a tiny bit better, tiny bit more realistic, tap follow, or subscribe. That way the next walk is there waiting for you. Keep your breathing going. And hopefully you got some tips, so you're able to just squeeze a few more steps in throughout the day, and I'll see you next time.